Hey guys how long do you usually run atitool for before you say your clocks are good Assuming your temps are ok? Mine hasn't gone over 60 for my top card so temps are ok. Going to do a NB mod on my mobo soon though which should decrease those temps a bit. My bottom card stays around 48-49 during atitool.

I run ATI tool for as long as I can stand...sometimes 30 seconds, sometimes 5 minutes. Depends on how critical I am of the OC at the time...then I'll run 3DM06 and Vantage...if that's good, I'll game with it.

It seems these cards are pretty good for temps with the OE coolers, 80% treats my 260 quite well, idles around 44-45C, loads around 60-62C atm. I use both the artifact scanner and just the "fuzzy cube", of course a harder gpu test would be full screen FurMark.

I still find gaming one of the best benchmarks, just make sure you have some stability so you don't lose a save spot or don't care to play that part again!

I tried the BIOS flash with a voltage increase and it made things worse, so I reflashed back to the original voltage. I can go 740/1512/1250 without issues with the stock voltage. I couldn't get anywhere near this with the extra 1.18v.

I think I could go higher on the shaders but I have to skip up to 1566 after the 1512 and that is too much. I'm using EVGA precision and if I put in anything over 1512 it drops back to 1512 up to a certain point and then goes to 1566. I get the same problem with memory settings at 1296. If I go above 1296 it will drop back to 1296 to a point.

I have an EVGA SC and am wondering if a different BIOS would work better with the voltage increase mod?

Good question waxking1. I have no idea, I haven't tried messing around with the BIOS yet. I'm going to wait for some aftermarket coolers to show up before I do any v-mods.

By the way, what kind of temperature increases did you see after the v-mod in idle/load, if any?

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I saw a 2 degree increase in idle temps so I know the vmod was working. I would be a lot more worried about installing a new heatsink than a BIOS flash. Removing the heatsink/fan from this card is not as easy as most.

s1Lv3r, are you running the fan at 100% when you overclock? Also, what sort of temperatures do you get in idle/load? It could be just a matter of high temperatures. How is the case airflow?

If your overall temps are fine then one way to test if a particular GTX 260 GPU is a decent sample is to set it to EVGA GTX 260 FTW clocks, at least GPU/shader wise. Set it to 666MHz core, 1404MHz shader, VRAM at stock. If it can do those clocks, then chances are it can do 700MHz+ on the core.

Well, a friend of mine also has the Gainward 260, he mentioned that he read on a forum (he cant remember which one) that a guy tried the following and it gave him some extra on the core and shaders:

make sure BIOS is stock
Underclock the core and shaders (linked) to 550mhz for 2 days and keep the fan at 100%.
Do the BIOS mod to 1.18V under "extra"
then give her a try, it gave me 25mhz on the core with shaders linked.

Now I know that all seems a bit far fetched, but it did seem to work for me although it may have been sheer coinscedence as these do seem to loosten up with time.

I can run furmark, fluidmark, play Source 24/7 at 800 linked, it will crash after 20 minutes of COD4 and wont complete a 2006 run at those speeds, I have to drop her down to 785 linked to go trouble free thru them.

Hey guys. Just curious if you guys notice this with your cards, especially if anyone has a gtx260 OC from BFG. I think my overclock is limited right now due to the way my core and shaders are linked. Anyone please comment, they ratio looks higher to me or something......
The first one is mine, the second is another poster on the first page.

Travva I've yet to see anyone else get that high on OC's stable and that guy never posted the bios mod he used or any further info. Take it with a grain of salt until we get more clarifacation from him...

Why don't you try to unlink your GPU:Shader and try overclocking that route? Every card will OC differently...mine does decent, but can't touch Tatty's results.